Of Earth and Fire
by EstelRaca
Summary: Hughes watches as Roy struggles to cope with what happened in Ishbal, not certain what he can do to help his friend. Rating for brief cursing.


Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Let the world be grateful.

AN1: The ending of FMA just blew me away. I am still reeling, and still very much in love with this series.

AN2: This and the other piece I'm posting were written shortly after my grandmother died and I went home for the funeral (writing being my coping tactic). My family has very strong military connections (every man of age is in or was in a branch of the service, which is probably why I've got a fascination with the military even in fantasy worlds), so some of the impressions of their grieving and coping that I saw may resonate through these. Forgive me if they do. I attempted to separate reality from the FMA world (amusing, considering the lovely mind-twists at the end of the series). As always, true opinions welcomed.

**Of Earth and Fire**

Weight.

Weight was the first sensation he was aware of, a heaviness that encased his body like a lead sheath, somehow reaching inside his mind to encumber his thoughts as well. It wasn't an uncomfortable feeling, though… on the contrary, it was rather relaxing, in a disconcerting way, as though the entire world were embracing his being. A contented half-smile drifted languidly across his face as the feeling settled deeper into his bones.

"Are you awake yet?"

The voice cascaded like thunder through the air, causing him to flinch back, though a small portion of his mind whispered that it was truly only a normal conversational tone.

For a moment he considered simply ignoring it, but there had been an undercurrent to the voice that he recognized as both familiar and dangerous. Fighting against the weight that encompassed his limbs, he struggled both to open his eyes and bring his fingers together in preparation for…

Something.

Uneasiness filled him at the realization that he had no idea what he was planning on attempting.

Then all thought was wiped out by blinding pain as light struck his retinas, a breathless whimper squeezing past his throat, thousands of images exploding inside his mind at too fast a pace for him to process.

"So the dog still has a voice. That's good. I was beginning to think you'd managed to fry your own brain inside that thick skull of yours."

Squinting against the light, he managed to focus on the dark-haired, clean-shaven man settled in the chair across from his position on the couch. The man's stance was deliberately relaxed, but there was still that undertone to the voice that struck him as dangerous. The man was also… familiar… very familiar…

"What the hell were you thinking, Roy?"

This time the anger in the man's voice wasn't concealed, but he was too busy reeling back from the fresh knowledge that tumbled through his thoughts at the sound of that name to worry about it.

Roy… that was _his_ name… Roy Mustang… and he was an officer in the service of Amestris' military

(_blood__ blood on the floor on his hands in the smoke in the air innocent blood burned black_)

an alchemist feared because of his control of… fire…

As for the man sitting across from him… that was Maes Hughes…

A very unhappy Maes Hughes.

A downright furious Maes Hughes.

A Maes Hughes that looked quite nearly homicidal.

"Well, Roy?"

It took Roy a moment to remember the question. When he spoke, his voice was raspier than he expected, his throat constricting painfully as he swallowed. "Thinking?"

"Yes. Thinking. What. Were. You. Thinking."

Maes didn't look any happier. In fact he looked, if possible, even more furious.

"When?"

"When?! How about when you did whatever idiotic thing you did that left you bleeding on one of your fucking circles!"

Maes half-stood as he spoke, causing Roy to start back, certain that if looks could kill he would now be dead… a fact that he was relatively certain Maes would regret.

Maybe.

"I… don't remember…"

"Don't remember what you were thinking? Not surprising, since I'm pretty damn certain you weren't—"

"An array. I… don't remember a transmutation…"

Hughes froze, poised on the edge of his seat. Then the older man fell back, most of the energy seeping from him as he did, the expression of fury giving way to one of abject misery, fear and despair.

"God, Roy, when I walked in and found you… I thought…" Maes trailed off, for once at a loss for words, and Roy noticed with dismay that the other man was shaking slightly.

Whatever he'd done, it had scared the hell out of his best friend.

"I'm sorry, Maes."

Hughes' short bark of laughter caused Roy to flinch back again, unable to meet his friend's gaze. "You're sorry. You're sorry you scared me out of a good decade of my life. Can you at least tell me what the hell happened?"

"I… don't remember. I was… tired. I've been working since yesterday morning. If I did try a transmutation, I might have… lost control… or… I don't know. I'm sorry, Maes."

"You were tired… and you decided to practice your alchemy." Maes held his friend's gaze for a long moment. "Were you trying to die, Roy?"

"No!" Roy struggled briefly to sit up. "Of course not."

"It sounds to me like you set yourself up for a… what do you guys call it? A rebound? Or at least an accident of some kind. Is that what happened? Was this a rebound?"

"No. I wouldn't still be in one piece if it was. Something would be missing, or disfigured, or…" Roy shifted slightly. "You said… I was bleeding…"

"Yes." Hughes studied the ground between his feet, his hands hanging loosely between his knees.

His hands…

"What happened?" Roy lurched upright, regretting the action when the room began to sway abruptly. "What happened to you?"

Maes looked down at his own hands and shrugged, the archetypical picture of nonchalance. "I tried cooking breakfast for Gracia this morning. It was a mistake."

Roy continued to stare at the burns, tracing them with his eyes to where they disappeared under the other man's sleeves. "You're certain that's…"

"You wouldn't hurt me, Roy, and you don't need to take care of me. I wish I could say the same about you. You know Investigations started putting the ones like you into… retraining programs. It looks bad to the public if the alchemists who were used in the front end up killing themselves left and right."

"I wasn't trying to—"

"No? You know your limits. You purposefully ignored them. You almost died. What's it look like to you?"

Roy didn't answer.

"I don't have any kids yet, and I plan on having the fun before I get them. Understand that? I'm your friend. I have been for years. I'm here if you want to talk, or cry, or get drunk and curse everyone from Gran up to the Fuhrer. I'm here to help you get what you want. But I can't—I _won't_—be your father. I won't follow you everywhere. I'll try to beat as much sense into you as I can, but if you want to die, you'll have an opportunity. Just make sure I'm not the one who ends up having to pick up the pieces. Understand?" Maes finally raised his eyes to meet Roy's gaze.

"Yes. I'm sorry, Maes."

Hughes shrugged briefly. "I know. How're you doing? I didn't think you'd managed to severely damage anything, but I'm no doctor, and—"

"I'm fine. Really. Exhausted, but I'll live. After all, we've got to head for the top, right?"

Maes gave a half-hearted grin. "All the way to Fuhrer. We're going to fix this screwy country."

Roy nodded. "Right. Fix it from the top down."

This time Maes' grin was less forced, a fact that Roy noted with relief. "I don't know whether I should look forward to the day you become Fuhrer or be terrified by the prospect."

"You know me. Of course you should be terrified."

An awkward silence engulfed the two friends.

Finally Hughes cleared his throat. "I should be getting home. Gracia will worry."

"Right." Roy stood on shaky legs to see his friend out, halting abruptly when he caught sight of his work area.

"Oh, yeah… I think I managed to drown your circle…"

And most of the rest of his work. Roy continued to stare in dumbfounded silence at the chaotic splatters of red paint that coated not only his arrays but most of his notes from the past month.

"I… think you went into a bit of overkill." Roy glanced at his friend, who was doing his best to appear both self-righteous and sheepish. "However, the thought is appreciated."

"Hey," Maes shrugged. "What are alchemy-illiterate friends for?"

XXX

The grin that he had plastered on for Roy's benefit faded rapidly as Maes navigated the streets back to his house and Gracia's arms. Twice, now, in two months… twice Roy had managed to scare the hell out of him.

The first time he had been utterly floored by the young alchemist's almost-actions. That time it had taken the better half of a weekend to turn Roy's quarters into something habitable.

This time, though… this time…

It had been the scream that told him something was wrong, that turned a leisurely stroll to a friend's house into a mad dash down the street. It had been an inhuman sound, a single note held until the lungs sustaining it had run out of fuel.

The sight that had greeted him when he wrenched his best friend's door open was something that was indelibly burned into his memory. Roy, crouched over one of his circles, head thrown back in a silent cry of agony, fire and heat and darkness swirling around him in impossible, beautiful curves…

Maes shivered. There had been something very _wrong_ with the way the darkness and fire moved, caressing and stroking the young alchemist as if alive.

It hadn't really been a conscious decision that threw him at Roy, more a protective instinct and possessive claim that he couldn't have controlled if he wished to. Roy was _his_, his oldest friend, his closest comrade, and there was no way in hell Maes was giving him up to something he couldn't even name…

Roy had gone limp the moment his hands were wrenched from the circle, blood flowing from his nose, his mouth, his ears, blood that scared Hughes just as much as the fire that licked around them both for seconds that stretched into eternity.

When finally the flames and the noise died away, he had found himself shaking on the floor, Roy cradled tightly to his chest.

For one terrifying moment he had been certain the alchemist was dead.

He found a pulse, though… a pulse, and two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes, one head, no metal, no sign of internal injuries… not even a burn had marred the still form in his arms.

Maes hadn't been able to say the same for himself. Burns extended all along his arms and onto his chest, the worst centered where he had clutched Roy's bloody head to his chest. Still, if that was the only price he had to pay for his friend's life…

It had taken a few minutes for Hughes to decide not to bring the unconscious alchemist to a doctor. If there was something wrong that he couldn't see, it would more than likely have taken another alchemist to fix it, in which case Roy's career—and dreams, and quite possible autonomous existence outside the military—would have been over, dead before they were even properly birthed.

Cleaning the blood off his friend had taken a good deal of work, the burns on his hands making it difficult to tell how rough he was being, the pain radiating from the injured tissue occasionally overwhelming his control. He wanted no physical evidence of what had happened left when Roy finally came to.

Knocking over the first can of paint had been an accident, a misstep as he attempted to throw away the cloths he had bloodied. Tipping over the second hadn't been, and the fierce joy he had felt flinging the third can of red paint

(_paint__, only pain, that was good, that Roy had downgraded to paint_)

over the circles was something that Hughes remembered vividly. When there were no more buckets left, he had settled for using his feet to spread the paint, erasing as much of the symbol as he could.

The end of his destructive spree had left him shaking visibly, something entirely unacceptable for someone with his training and career plans. It had taken a good quarter hour of watching the state alchemist lie, still but breathing, living and whole, before the shaking subsided to something controllable.

By the end of a half hour, anger had replaced the fear and uncertainty.

At the end of an hour, he had been ready to carry the younger man to a hospital by himself, certain he had missed something in his examination. It had only taken the slight twitch of returning consciousness, though, to transmute the fresh wave of concern into an even stronger rage. Roy had no right to do that to him… to endanger both their lives…

"Maes."

Hughes was snapped from his reverie by gentle hands encircling his chest.

"Gracia." Hughes sighed as he melted into his lover's arms, relishing the safety and sanity of her embrace. Roy might be the fire in his existence, the drive, but Gracia was the foundation, the earth on which he could stand firm, a support he could cling to no matter what idiotic thing his best friend did.

"Maes, what happened to you? Did Roy…"

Hughes shook his head slightly. "It was an accident. He…"

"Is he all right?" Gracia transferred her grip to his arm, gently leading him inside, the concern in her voice and face nearly enough to shatter his control and leave him shaking again, ready to tell the world that _no_, Roy was _not_ 'all right', that in his opinion Roy would _never_ be all right again, that something important in his friend had died in Ishbal and he had no way to bring it back, no way to fix the damage that the military had done, no matter how hard he tried…

Maes swallowed hard, ensuring that the confession was well clear of his throat before answering. "He's doing all right. He just…"

Gracia smiled slightly. "Acted like Roy?"

Hughes returned her smile and shrugged.

"I know you worry about him, but Roy's a grown man. He's seen more than the two of us ever will. You can trust him to take care of himself, right?"

Maes didn't answer, instead pulling Gracia down onto the couch with him and holding her close against him, nestling his head deep into her hair, blocking out the rest of the world.

Roy _could_ take care of himself. Roy was _infinitely_ capable of taking care of himself. He simply… didn't, not unless he had a reason to. What Roy needed was a girlfriend, or even simply some subordinates… someone for the man to worry about, to care for, instead of simply burning himself out in an attempt to reach the top as quickly as possible.

Roy had never been the kind of man who could take a gun to his head and pull the trigger. He wasn't enough of a coward to convince himself that it was for the best, that it would make the most difference. Even Ishbal hadn't been able to change that. He wasn't even the kind of man who could take his life by attempting the forbidden. Too much fire for life burned inside him, drove him to keep fighting even when he consciously wanted everything to end.

He _was_ the kind of man who would push himself to the limit and then take a step beyond, just to see what would happen. And with alchemy, a science of nature and will, where the raw talent inside their souls was such a large part of the equation, the fuel that drove everything to completion… with alchemy, that single step beyond could be the difference between life and death.

Maes realized belatedly that the shivering was back, this time accompanied by a suspicious moisture on his face. For a moment he considered fighting the tears. He knew he could, at least for the time being. Then the smell of Gracia's hair touched his nose again, the gentle caresses from her fingertips registered in his mind, the soft murmurs of support and love penetrated his hearing, and he simply let go, allowing all the grief and fear and anger that had built up during the war and since its end to spill free.

After all, storms couldn't hurt the earth.

But they could drown flame, and it was his self-appointed task to keep the Flame Alchemist from being extinguished before his time.


End file.
